about background colour

Hello! Could anyone tell me if it's for sure necessary to buy a CSS upgrade before changing the background color of a WordPress.com blog theme, please (Michael Heilemann, for instance). And if it's not needed, how to proceed. Thanks by advance for your precious help :)

Er, that's not exactly correct. If you mean the (usually white) bg to the main posts area, then you do need the CSS upgrade. If you mean the bg around it (e.g. the grey-brown in the Treba theme you're using), you don't need the CSS upgrade: you only need code in a text widget.

OK, I better come over here, I guess ,-)
Oh, yes, that's exactly what I mean (that grey-brown stuff for instance ;))
Could you tell me which code must be writed in the text widget, please. Thank you very much by advance.

@matt: Thanks for letting us know. But I don't see why you consider it a loophole and why you think it must go away. Several themes are color customizable already (without the CSS upgrade); adding a simple bg color the way I suggested is no more than that.

@matt: Thanks for letting us know. But I don't see why you consider it a loophole and why you think it must go away. Several themes are color customizable already (without the CSS upgrade); adding a simple bg color the way I suggested is no more than that.

Adding:

Since I'm a volunteer here, I'd like to know what "embedded CSS like that" exactly means. Bg color? Position:fixed in general? Even more general?

Does this mean I can't apply styles already defined in the CSS to stuff I put in a text widget or in a post or page? Many HTML styles one uses are already being converted to inline CSS by wordpress and wordpress uses inline CSS for styling many things already.

Come on Matt, give us more details on this. If you take away the ability to use CSS to style things in widgets and posts/pages you make this service a hell of a lot less useful for many of us out there.

I have two new clients I was going to start out on wordpress.COM, but if this is the case, I'll push them to self-host right from the get-go.

Not intending to stir up the pot here (OK maybe a little), but there are at least a couple comments from panaghiotisadam missing from this thread. I have it on good authority that they aren't flames or anything like that.

As of now, on blogs that don't have the CSS upgrade we will strip the "position" property on save. That means you can keep your existing CSS in posts or widgets, but the next time you save it, it runs through the new filter and the "position" property will be lost.